If you have five or more employees and you don't provide an occupational pension scheme for your employees and don't offer access to a personal pension scheme that meets certain conditions, then you are required by law to offer your employees access to a stakeholder pension scheme to help them save for their retirement.  Exemptions do apply for some employers.  For example if you already provide your employees with access to an occupational pension scheme or suitable group personal pension.  For more information please contact your financial adviser.

You can offer your staff a group personal/stakeholder pension scheme or an occupational scheme. The different types of scheme have different employer requirements. For more information please read our products page and discuss your options with a financial adviser.

If you do not offer an occupational scheme you must offer employees access to a Stakeholder Pension if you have five or more employees.

Exemptions do apply for some employers. For example you already provide your employees with access to an Occupational Pension Scheme or suitable Group Personal Pension.

For more information on this please contact your financial adviser.

Legal & General pension plans are designed to offer value for money and access to a variety of investment options. Some of these options include internal and external funds and Lifestyle Profiles.

Internal Funds

With more than £150 billion of assets under management on behalf of over 2800 pension schemes, we are the largest manager of UK pension fund assets. Legal & General Investment Management Limited, has unique combination of size, experience, and pension knowledge.

External Funds

For greater choice and flexibility, we offer a range of externally managed pension funds from a number of different providers. These funds have been carefully selected to complement our own. The type of scheme will determine the number of funds and external providers available to your members. Full details of funds are available in the relevant fund guides.

There is an additional annual management charge for external funds.

Lifestyle Profiles

As well as a wide range of pension funds, we are also able to offer members access to a selection of Lifestyle Profiles. As each individual member's retirement approaches they gradually switch their investment profile from equity based investments into less volatile funds. This way employees benefit from potentially higher returns during the earlier years of their plans while reducing volatility and increasing the security of investments when it matters most - in the years immediately prior to retirement.

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Under the Financial Promotions Order (FPO), which is part of the Financial Services Act 2000, organisations have extra freedom to promote their group pension plans to employees.

The FPO means that employers (or their representatives) can promote their scheme without the need to be authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and without materials needing to be approved by a third party who in turn has also been authorised by the FSA.

In order to qualify for dispensation to promote their scheme, the FPO requires that the employer:

• makes a contribution to the pension.
• must not receive any financial benefit from employee contributions.
• provides a statement by the employer, confirming the employer’s contribution levels.
• informs the employee of their right to seek financial advice from a person authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

In practice the rules mean that you can now be much more independent in the way you promote your group pension schemes. While some key materials remain subject to a formal approval process, in many cases where you are communicating directly with staff, there is no need to seek outside assistance. This should significantly cut the time and effort required to promote your scheme.

Aside from those listed above, there are no further legal restrictions on the way you can promote your scheme so the rules could prove an ideal opportunity to increase the membership of an existing scheme. Legal & General offers a Promotions Consultancy Service to help you make the most of the rules.

It is important to raise employee awareness of the advantages of being in a pension scheme to maximise membership.

A Marketing Manager will work with you to put in place a communication program tailored to the specific needs of your company. Whilst we provide a range of 'off the shelf' material in a variety of formats, working together we can create bespoke items using technology that is suitable for your business environment. This programme will be reviewed with you as part of our ongoing partnership to make sure that it always remains relevant and appropriate as the scheme develops.

We have produced a number of ready-made sales aid templates to help you get your message across with maximum impact and minimum effort.

They include:

• Announcement letter and email
• Contribution review letters
• Pay slip insert
• Sales leaflet
• Newsletter editorial
• Letter to new employees, newly eligible employees and new joiners
• Generic Pensions DVD

Together, the templates create a clear, compelling and easy to understand case for joining the group pension scheme. Best of all, they only take minutes to prepare. Simply tailor the necessary sections to your own scheme, print and distribute.

This is an arrangement whereby an employee takes a reduction in remuneration and the employer pays a corresponding amount to a pension arrangement, as an employer’s contribution, for the employee’s benefit. This potentially reduces both parties’ National Insurance contributions; a saving that can be used to increase the pension contribution. Bonus payments may also be sacrificed in the same way.